Read a short story many years ago (forget title and author, alas) with just this scenario. The protagonist’s girlfriend notes how bright the full moon looks, half an hour later Jupiter looks brighter than ever. He figures out that the sun has let out a huge solar flare and probably wiped out everything in the eastern hemisphere. He and his girlfriend buy as much food as possible and hope for the best.
Sounds familiar. Anyone recall the title?
I remember a book I read back in the 80’s. The premise was that an insane Muslim scientist raised a buttload of money to fund a space-borne super-laser that was supposed to wipe out Israeli cities. He builds and launches the thing and demonstrates it to the world by zorching an abandoned desert town in Sudan (or somewhere close) and demanding a ransom. Turns out, he has bigger plans. He actualy intends to fire it into the Sun, which will cause the Sun to belch out a stream of microwaves that will fry the Western Hemisphere.
The hero of the story finds out about this and, with his female colleague, break into the control center for the laser and attempt to disarm it. Unfortunately, it fires off....but it does so several hours early, which instead fries Europe, Northern Africa, most of Asia, and the mad Muslim scientist (who was buggering a young boy at the time). America survives. The second part of the book involved the survivors dealing with the weather (which was altered by the heating of the atmosphere on the other side of the world) and attempts on the American President’s life.
I’ll be darned if I can remember the title.
It is by Heinlein, I believe.
Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven